


Mirror Image

by judgement_xxRx



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Vampire Nakamoto Yuta, that gif of snooki where shes typing and says this is gonna be so bad, vampire hunter taeyong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24583498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judgement_xxRx/pseuds/judgement_xxRx
Summary: Who's hunting who again?
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Nakamoto Yuta
Kudos: 12





	Mirror Image

Jungeun whispers something into the man’s ear, lower lip brushing his lobe, one finger circling over his heart. Yuta imagines he can make out the words from where he stands. Their eyes meet from where he prowls, but she glances back to her prey, seemingly indifferent to him. If he had a heartbeat, it’d be racing by now. When he’d been newly reborn, the lack of bodily manifestations of his anticipation were uncomfortable. Like a lump in his throat with no tears. Every hunt still felt like the first. He was relatively young, 10 years in, and felt he was lacking in some ways of finesse. He scanned the club, surveying everyone and everything, keeping Jungeun in his periphery. She was leading the man out of a side exit. Yuta waited a minute before slipping through the writhing bodies to follow them, vibrating with anticipation. He skulked steadily behind while Jungeun led the man by their interlocked hands towards her car. Jungeun pressed her back against it, allowing the man to crowd her and giving Yuta a chance to slip into the back seat from the other side first. She slipped out of the man’s grip and opened the door, pushing him into the backseat first.  
“Oof- hey you’re strong. Is there someone else in here?”  
Jungeun flicks the car light on to illuminate Yuta.  
“My boyfriend,” she simpers, “Are you into that?”  
The man looks back at Jungeun, the enticing upward crawl of her skirt and Yuta’s hungry gaze. There’s a sheet spread on the backseat, as if they’d been anticipating a messy night. He shrugs, “Why not”  
Sandwiched between the two of them, he moves for Jungeun, before she stops him.  
“We’re gonna take care of you,” she smiles, teeth glinting. Yuta is already mouthing at his neck, and Jungeun grabs his belt buckle, pausing to look solemnly into his eyes.  
“You’re sure it doesn’t bother you that I’m 17?”  
“Not at all,” he responds eagerly, struggling to pretend that Yuta’s mouth on his neck isn’t doing things to him, “You seem mature- ah” a moan cuts off his sentence as Jungeun straddles him. She moves her hands to intercept his reaching for her waist. Her head covers the light she had turned on, face shadowed. She hovers her mouth over the neglected left of his neck. Her hands interlocked with his suddenly seem to be pinning him in place.  
“And that,” she murmurs a chilly breath against his skin, “was your last chance out”  
The man doesn’t think twice about her words before he feels a burning puncture on both sides of his neck. His shriek cuts off suddenly as Yuta awkwardly maneuvers his larger body to better angle the bite to pump more venom into the man as they begin their feeding. He reaches up to turn off the light behind Jungeun’s head. Sometimes, Yuta swears he can feel the soul pouring out of their prey gradually, rather than an abrupt escape. He imagines a vague outline that witnesses their own end taking stronger shape as more and more of their self flows free of their former shell. Could he say they were freeing them?  
When they have well and truly drained him, Jungeun climbs off the body, shoving it to the side so she can sit beside Yuta and pretends to heave a great gasp.  
Yuta is wiping the blood off his mouth with a corner of the sheet they had lain on the seat, noting that Jungeun had barely a drop staining her racey school uniform costume. He checks his wristwatch.  
“Was that enough for you?” he asks. Older than him by two centuries, her cravings far exceeded his. He often yielded most of the second feeding to her; he found no need for overindulgence.  
“I’ll take care of this, you get the next one,” she responds by way of answering. Yuta gargles his mouth with bottled water in the car before he dives into the night. He slips back to the line before the club, closeish to the front amidst a chattering gaggle of college-age students. He ignores the scowls this attracts from the girls behind him with glitter smattering their face beautifully. He imagines that they look like fairies, and spares them a small smile of apology. It’s a surprisingly quick wait before Yuta reenters the pulsating space. The bass of the song, Korean this time, substitutes his absent pulse. The singer’s whispery voice promises, “The moment you take me in you’ll be thirsting for more, incomplete, creating the definition of heat” He moves on the dancefloor, not out of place among the “alternative” look of the crowd with his own platinum hair and earlobes brimming with metal.  
“Hey, twin!” he hears a shout close to his ear from his right. The music seems to stutter to a halt before it picks up again when he comes face to stunning face with a man around his own age. His hair is aglow in the dim light of the club, the same shade as Yuta’s, yet somehow more vibrant. His eyes are wide, but too piercing to be anything innocent like a doe’s. Smoke lines them and Yuta feels alight.  
He tilts his head, not ceasing his movement, and offers a lopsided grin. He doesn’t miss the way the other man’s eyes flicker to his mouth immediately, nor his darkening gaze.  
Pretty, he thinks. Jungeun will understand a change of plans. Probably. They move in time with the music, parallel to one another, with the charge of a challenge cast between them.  
When the song ends, the man looks at Yuta and begins to elbow his way to the bar, obviously expecting him to follow suit. He’s already waved the bartender over.  
“Let me get a Negroni,” he looks questioningly at Yuta, who only shakes his head. He shrugs.  
“Taeyong,” he offers flippantly.  
“Yuta,” he responds in kind.  
Taeyong downs his drink as they make light conversation about the weather, the music, the usual crowd, Rina Sawayama’s latest album, all of it an uninteresting prelude to the potential energy binding them. The air felt elastic, ready to snap when Taeyong throws back his beverage and lays a hand on Yuta’s knee, leaning into him.  
“Let’s take this elsewhere,” he whispers, breath tickling his lobe. Yuta catches his lips on Taeyong’s before he can pull his face away, hand on his jaw, drinking him in. Taeyong returns the favor, tongue enticingly slow and sweet. He pulls away, interlacing Taeyong’s warm hand with his own, tugging him towards the car. He spots a shadow that is sure to be Jungeun behind the car across from theirs and leans against the car to pull Taeyong into another kiss, keeping a lid open to seek out his companion. He waves a hand wildly behind Taeyong’s back, trying to signal her to leave. Yuta tries to play off his absent hand by pulling Taeyong closer. When he thinks she’s caught his drift, he draws himself away from the man with a little reluctance, and unlocks the car. He is more relieved than he expected to see a spotless cover over the seats he could pretend was normal. Taeyong raises his eyebrows imperceptibly as he settles into the passenger side.  
“I’m gonna text my roommate real quick,” he notifies a tense Taeyong.  
“Kicking them out?” he grins wolfishly.  
“Ditching her more like,” he snorts, “In retaliation for ditching me, of course”  
The typing bubble was already ticking.

 **me**  
remember in WA when /i/ crashed in a cave because you had met that Yves girl?

The typing ceased, started again.  
**💋🍒🌹💔**  
No.

The typing bubble started up again.

 **💋🍒🌹💔**  
Fine. Only because I know enough others in Atlanta for me to have an actual bed.  
**me**  
I could have had a bed?!?  
**💋🍒🌹💔**  
You didn’t ask then. He’s cute. Keep it clean.

Yuta only rolls his eyes. 

**me**  
have u got a ride ?? you shouldnt walk.  
**💋🍒🌹💔**  
I can manage.

His keys are barely in the ignition before Taeyong starts mouthing his jaw, “What’s the rush?” his breath feels searing against Yuta’s skin, “Your seats seem ready for anything”  
He relents to Taeyong’s lips, the sensation of him heady and addictive. Taeyong’s mouth is latched on his neck when he detachedly notes something jabs his chest. Immediately, he disregards it as the stick. It’s as if his body is elsewhere except for where it meets with Taeyong’s, his lips and the inches of skin where his sweltering palm has bunched the hem of his shirt. The pressure against his chest now becomes insistent and biting. He breaks away from Taeyong, who only straightens and maintains a stake even with his chest. His eyes contain a silent threat. His chest is rising and falling quickly from their activities. The hand holding the stake to his heart trembles.  
“I’ll give you a chance to leave _now_ ,” Yuta jerks his chin towards the door.  
“You don’t get to dictate any terms right now,” Taeyong spits.  
“Look, man,” Yuta’s Adam’s apple bobs as he fakes a nervous swallow, “I don’t know what this is-”  
“You know exactly what this is,” the stake presses further into his chest. Yuta pauses. He leans closer into Taeyong, “I definitely wasn’t even gonna kill you until you did this, _Huntsman_ ”  
“I don’t know who that is, but I’ll kill you first,” Taeyong hissed. The response catches Yuta in surprise. But he gestures between the both of them, blasé.  
“Then what’s keeping you?”  
Taeyong swallows. Yuta remains stationary in his perpetual death. Taeyong’s heartbeats are tumbling over one another in a sloppy race. The seconds inch by, the both of them contained in a moment of real-time slow motion.  
“Well?” the stake is pushing only slightly deeper into Yuta’s flesh. He has a moment of doubt in what he thought he had seen in the man.Taeyong swallows loudly, and Yuta maintains his bluff, raising his brows in challenge. In the space of Taeyong’s hesitation, he grabs the stake and snaps it in half. The ease of the act surprises him. Taeyong is scrabbling behind him to open the door when Yuta locks the door. Taeyong presses his head to the window and groans. Yuta stares at him in utter confusion. No backup weapons? No fight? He considers Taeyong cowering with his back to the window and comes to a quick conclusion, starting the car.  
“Where are you taking me?” Taeyong asks with panic.  
“Waffle House. Here,” he blindly grabs for his phone in the cupholder, passing it to Taeyong, “Put Waffle House in the map” Taeyong, bewildered, complies. The silence between them is punctuated with the GPS instructions, the night vacuous. 

Taeyong presses himself against the window, keeping a vigilant eye on the predator before him. It feels like every atom that makes him up is askew. He was doing so well. He’s sure that there is sweat pooling underneath his pits. Oh god, he must smell to Yuta. He completely choked. The failure and complete shift in the night dizzies him. He finally crumples into his seat proper, only to press his head between his knees to keep from retching.  
“Hey,” Yuta says, “Put on your seatbelt”  
Taeyong chokes out a laugh. His killer was taking him to Waffle House. His last meal in life was going to be a Waffle House All-Star Special. He groans again.  
“Hey, man, I’m serious. Imagine the cops pull over this happy little scene”  
He complies robotically only for that reasoning, now sitting up straight to stare out the window broodingly. If Yuta is such a responsible driver, there’s no way he’ll take his eyes off the road long enough to exsanguinate him, he thinks.  
“Your mentor didn’t prepare you for this, huh?”  
Taeyong only shakes his head.  
“Not for a vampire taking me out to eat at least. You know,” he looks back at Yuta, “She’s five years younger than me but she loves to be vague. Loves to go on about justice and stuff but when I ask her what they’re like in the field, she tells me nothing” he’s fired up his engine of nonstop nervous chatter now. Yuta doesn’t take his eyes off the road as he nods.  
“How long have you been learning?” he asks. Taeyong mumbles his answer purposefully so Yuta can’t hear him.  
“Two weeks?!” Yuta glances at him in shock. Taeyong’s face heats up as he looks away from Yuta in embarrassment. He braces himself for mockery but only receives silence as they pull up to their destination.  
They stride in, shoulder to shoulder at the counter for Taeyong to order. The fluorescent lighting in the dead of the night casts a dream-like glow in the diner, empty except for one customer at the counter and two employees.  
They drop into a booth across from each other. Taeyong jiggles his leg and his eyes flit about everything but the vampire across from him. His spine is ramrod straight. Yuta only watches him, arms crossed and posture lax.  
“I have a mentor too,” Yuta breaks their silence with a hushed, furtive tone. Taeyong finally spares him eye contact. The toe of his boot continues to click on the wall.  
“Your sire?”  
“No. Someone else made me the way I am. But my mentor is teaching me everything I’ve learned. She was reborn at an age younger than me,” he starts to fiddle with a leftover napkin on the table, “She has this grace that makes me feel like a dumb kid, though”  
Taeyong nods fervently, “Exactly like my mentor”  
“Mine is actually older than me so,” Yuta smiles, “I actually am a dumb kid next to her”  
Taeyong’s eyes are searching his, “How old is she?”  
“Two hundred and odd years… give or take”  
The man leans on the table, closes his eyes, and covers his face with both hands, mumbling under his breath. His hands are pressed together over his mouth as if in prayer.  
“And how old are you?” his tone sounds weary.  
“Thirty-five”  
Yuta grins as Taeyong’s eyes snap open. He searches his face as if seeking some indication of the wisdom of that age, the lines that let him know he had experienced what was to come for Taeyong himself. Yuta’s face sombers up suddenly, and he leans closer.  
“Do you want to die?”  
The question makes Taeyong’s forgotten anxiety snap back into his place. He swallows roughly. He thought before maybe he was going to be spared. Now, he thought, at least, he wouldn’t have to pay the water bill for the tap he’s pretty sure he left running in his rush out of the apartment.  
“Why would you try to hunt me with no real training if you don’t want to die?”  
Yuta phrases it as if it’s a real question, with the expectation of a real answer. It hangs in the air when Taeyong realizes that’s exactly what it is. He swallows again.  
One of the waitresses interrupts his thoughts to place the food in the middle of the table, unsure of whose meal it was. Yuta thanks her with a winning smile. Taeyong glimpses the blood in a space between his incisors that had begun this disastrous night. He decides quickly.  
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he excuses himself. Yuta’s hand grabs his before he can go. His grip is firm, but not threateningly so.  
He drops his voice, “If you don’t want Yeri to know about this, I suggest you come back”  
Taeyong’s mouth dries up. But his heart also leaps at the fact that the threat contains a promise of life after this.  
“I guess I really do have to pee now,” he replies in a faint voice. Yuta grins again, and Taeyong damns that smile to hell.  
When he returns, the food is pushed to his side of the booth and includes a googly-eyed smiley face of the bacon and eggs. Yuta gestures at him impatiently to dig in.  
Taeyong has a mouthful of waffle and sausage when Yuta starts, “I started learning how to drive when I was 16,” his tone is reminiscent. Taeyong considers the fact that Yuta is a dead man recalling his youth and is seized with a sadness for him beyond words.  
“I was always doing stupid things when I was a kid just to prove I could do it, like surfing down the stairs on an air mattress,” Taeyong’s brows furrow at this, “Or climbing to the top of a tree taller than the house. My parents left me home alone with one of the cars, and I decided to take it out for a spin to one of the busier roads,” Yuta stares absently down at the table.  
“Once I had got there though, I started to freeze up at the light. It was a left turn, and when I finally made it, I had swerved into the wrong lane I almost crashed head-on into another car,”  
Taeyong purses his lips at the transparent allegory, and cuts another piece from his waffle.  
“I swerved back to the right lane just in time, but my heart was pounding so bad, man. I could have died right then”  
Taeyong detects a plaintive tone in his voice, and looks back down at his meal.  
“Do you ever wish you had died right then?” he asks quietly.  
Yuta shrugs.  
“Sometimes”  
He leans forward, and warns his hunter gravely, “You had better hope you die like that instead of the way I have. Or die after the fact of reaching your destination”  
Taeyong swallows the mouthful of food, painfully conscious of Yuta’s still chest.  
Yuta leans back, casual now.  
“Why are you so eager for a hunt anyways? That’s like coming to work early”  
It’s Taeyong’s turn to shrug now. He toys with the rest of the food on his plate, appetite gone.  
“She just made it look so easy,” he says ruefully, “I wish I had some sick ass backstory about avenging a loved one like Sasuke or something. But she took me for a hunt, and it just looked so cool and simple. Be sexy and then when you’re alone...” Taeyong makes a stabbing gesture, “You know”  
Yuta laughs, “You only succeeded at step one. I was on a real hunt for a meal until you distracted me”  
Taeyong smirks, unembarrassed at the memory of Yuta’s previous eagerness. His expression fades as he recognizes the reminder that the man in front of him is a killer.  
Yuta’s air doesn’t change when Taeyong blurts, “Yeri and I met before my ex could try to kill me”  
Yuta’s gaze is now sharpened, intent.  
“It was a second date, so maybe not an ‘ex’ per se. Before he could take me home in his car, she pops out of nowhere and turns my date into dust. It was like an episode of Buffy,” he pushes his plate away, continuing quietly, “She explained to me what he was and how he preyed on people like that. I wanted to help people too or at least not feel helpless like that again,” he meets Yuta’s eyes, with a gleam in his own, “There was just a moment of truth where pursuing that felt _right_ ”  
Taeyong recalls that night, the alarms in his head ringing at the man’s insistence that he take a ride with him. The suddenness with which he had exploded into ash, Yeri’s vengeful figure revealed, her stake hanging midair for a split second before falling to the pavement with a muted clank. The swelling pressure upon him that announced his arrival at kismets tangled lines.

Yuta is working his mouth around his own story when they return to the car.  
“Jungeun found me when I was dying for the second time,” he begins.  
Taeyong is intent on listening. Intent on any explanation for his inability to perceive some underhandedness in the creature with him tonight. Throughout the night, he had oscillated between the fear that Yuta would kill him because he simply _could_ , and the gut feeling that he _wouldn’t_.  
“I was crumbling into nothing from the thirst. If I didn’t die from that, surely I would have died from the inevitable sunrise,” he stops, stares into the night before he starts the car.  
“I don’t know anything about the man she fed me when she took me in that night. I can’t speak for what choices she made to save me. But,” he focuses on Taeyong for a second as they pull onto the road, “have you ever seen that movie _Hard Candy_? The one where this 14 year old kills a 30 year old man flirting with her on the Internet?”  
Taeyong’s brows furrow as he works out Yuta’s statement. He leans back in his seat as understanding dawns.  
“Ethical exsanguination”  
“Yup. Surely you didn’t think Yeri would keep company with amoral individuals?”  
“I didn’t know she kept company with vampires at all considering her career,” Taeyong quips. Yuta guffaws at this.  
“She has to do it for the job. Although,” he contemplates the road speeding before him, “I doubt clubbing with Jungeun is conducive to the job. Anyway, it’s like in copaganda shows and movies where the police keep in touch with their narc friends”  
“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me this,” he yawns. Yuta hums sympathetically.  
“Don’t pass out before you can give me your address unless you’re fine with sleeping in my freezing apartment”  
“Does Yeri know you?”  
“Yeah,” Yuta draws out suspiciously, “Well, she recognizes my face well enough and we talk a bit when she sees Jungeun”  
“Hey Siri,” Taeyong declares to his phone, “Take us home”

Yeri bursts through the door of Taeyong’s dim living room, crowing, “Who’s ready for training?”  
Sorely disappointed with the lost chance at scaring her protegé senseless, she wanders into his hallway, calling, “Taeyong! Your favorite teacher is here!”  
She knocks on his door and awaits a groan before she pokes her head into his room. The shades are drawn closed, but her eyes have no trouble in the gloom.  
“It’s noon already,” she scolds the back of his blonded head, face pressed into the pillow.  
The blanket stirs as a head reveals itself from under and whines in Taeyong’s voice, “It’s a Sunday”  
Yeri stares at Taeyong and back at the head pressed against the pillow, horrified at the intrusion. They’ve been companions for two weeks, for all her ease in befriending Taeyong, she was unprepared enough to be embarrassed about this. The blonde in question leans up on an elbow and mumbles in a familiar voice, “Morning”  
Yeri makes out Yuta’s squinting face and all but jumps at the buzzing notification of Jungeun calling her from her car downstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> cashapp your black friends :) i should really make you cashapp me but 🤷🏽♀️


End file.
